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Ex-U.N. commander testifies in Rwanda trials
Says didn't have resources to stop genocide
February 25, 1998
Web posted at: 12:52 p.m. EST (1752 GMT)ARUSHA, Tanzania (CNN) -- The U.N. mission in Rwanda did not have the support it needed to prevent the 1994 genocide in the Central African nation, a former U.N. commander testified Wednesday.
Months before the blood bath began, Gen. Romeo Dallaire warned the United Nations that extremist Hutus intended to exterminate minority Tutsis. At least 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in the 100-day campaign.
Testifying at a U.N. genocide trial in Arusha, Dallaire said the shortcomings of the U.N. operation in Rwanda became evident soon after it was authorized by the Security Council in September 1993.
"My mission was not fully effective six months into the mandate," the 51-year-old Canadian said. "It was able to conduct operations but it was not able to conduct the full gamut of the operations... nor did it have all the support elements it should have had, should the situation degenerate as it did."
Dallaire said he had pleaded in vain for reinforcements and expanded powers for peacekeepers to prevent the genocide. U.N. officials refused, overruling his plans to raid a Hutu arms cache and instead evacuating most of the 2,500-member multinational force after the killings started on April 6, 1994.
Rwanda is trying to find a speedier way to bring prisoners to trial Dallaire, with a small force, remained in Rwanda throughout the genocide, but without a mandate or equipment to stop it.
Tutsi rebels, who won power and ended the killings in July 1994, have accused Dallaire's U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda(UNAMIR) of passively watching the massacres.
Dallaire said it would be wrong for him to say that UNAMIR was unable to conduct its mission. "However, if it had had the tools, it would've been a lot more effective," he said.
Shortage of resources
The U.N. mission relied on voluntary contributions from member countries, he said. A total of 26 countries supplied men, equipment or both, but in most cases the troops were not trained peacekeepers or were poorly equipped, he said.
"There was no country which wanted to provide resources for the work to be done. So we were in a situation where, on the one hand, the United Nations did not have the necessary resources, neither did we have contributing states with the resources so as to enable us to meet our mission," Dallaire said.
He had 1,200 men, while the Tutsi rebels who have since taken over Rwanda had an estimated 13,000 and the former Hutu government had 25,000 troops.
Many Rwandan refugees returned home from Tanzania in 1996 after two years of exile The strongest contingent was a 450-man Belgian battalion, Dallaire said. Hutu troops killed 10 of them in a frenzy of hatred on April 7, 1994, hours after President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down by unknown assailants. Two weeks later, the Belgian government withdrew its entire contingent.
Mayor accused of genocide
The United Nations set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in November 1994 to try the ringleaders of the genocide. It so far has 23 people in custody at the court in Arusha, northern Tanzania.
The trials are proceeding extremely slowly and the court has yet to complete a case, drawing criticism from inside and outside the United Nations.
Dallaire was testifying as a witness, called by lawyers defending Jean Paul Akayesu.
Akayesu, a 45-year-old former school teacher, is charged with genocide, inciting genocide, crimes against humanity, murder, rape, torture and other inhuman acts.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Prosecutors charge that, as mayor of Taba, east of the capital Kigali, Akayesu had "exclusive control over the communal police as well as any gendarmes put at the disposal of the commune."
The charge sheet said Akayesu seriously abused his authority and was personally responsible for the deaths of many of around 2,000 Tutsis killed in Taba between April 7 and June 1994.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Many Rwandan children head households, report says - February 24, 1998
- Rwandan genocide trials proceed at snail's pace - February 7, 1998
- Observers: Abuses by Rwandan military often unpunished - February 2, 1998
- U.N. tribunal seizes Rwandans on genocide charges - July 18, 1997
- Rwanda opens genocide trial - January 14, 1997
- New genocide trials open in Rwanda - December 30, 1996
Related sites:
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- United Nations Children's Fund (unicef)
- Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997 - U.S. Department of State
- Rwanda Page - African Studies at University of Pennsylvania
- The World Factbook page on Rwanda
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
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